'I heard that someone had killed her.'
'Who told you that?'
'Donna Rothwell.'
'Right. Look, Mrs. Drummond.'
'Please call me Nancy.'
'Okay, Nancy, I was calling because I wanted to know if you had any idea about who could have wanted to hurt my mom.' Michelle expected the woman to issue a resounding 'no' in a shocked, breathless tone, but she didn't.
'When I said I was sorry your mother was dead, I meant that Michelle. I liked her. But I can't in all honesty say I was surprised.'
Michelle sat straight up in her chair and motioned at Sean, who stopped doodling. Michelle hit a button on her cell, turning it to speakerphone mode.
'You say you're not surprised that someone killed my mother?'
Sean put down his pen and walked over to Michelle's desk and sat on the edge.
'Why would you say that?'
Nancy Drummond's mellifluous voice swooped into the room. 'How well did you know your mother?'
'I guess not all that well, actually.'
'This is difficult to say, your being her daughter and all.'
'Mrs.-Nancy, don't pull any punches. I just want to find who did this.'
'I didn't know your father very well. He and your mom didn't go out much together. But Sally enjoyed the social circle we had down here. Very much.'
Michelle noted the emphasis on the last words. 'How much is very much?'
'I don't like to talk out of school.'
'Listen, if my mom was messing around on my dad, that's very important to know, Nancy. Do you know who she was seeing?'
'It was more than one, actually.'
Michelle slumped back in her chair. 'How many more than one?'
'Three, at least that I knew of. Two moved away, the last about a month ago.'
'Where'd they move to?'
'One to Seattle, the other overseas.'
'And who was the third?'
'You didn't hear this from me because it's not common knowledge. Your mother was very discreet, I'll give her that. And I don't know if they were, well, you know, intimate. Maybe they were just spending time with each other. Maybe they were just lonely.'
'Who?' Michelle said calmly, although she wanted to fire a round into the phone to make the woman answer without any more qualifiers.
'Doug Reagan.'
'Doug Reagan? As in Donna Rothwell's steady, Doug Reagan?'
'That's the one. Do you know him?'
'Not really, but I think I will now. How long were they having an affair?'
'Well, I thought they were still having it, up until your mother died, I mean.'
'Wait a minute, how do you know all this?'
'Your mother confided in me. We were very good friends.'
'So no one else knows that you know?'
'I don't know if she told anyone else. But I've never talked about it to another soul until right now. A confidence is a confidence. But now that she's gone, well, I thought you had a right to know.'
To know that my mother was a slut. Thanks.
'Are you there, dear?'
Michelle snapped back. 'Yeah, I'm here. Would you be willing to tell the police what you just told me?'
'Do I have to?'
Sean put a hand on Michelle's arm and shook his head.
'Maybe not,' Michelle said quickly. 'At least not right now.' She paused. 'Uh, did my dad know about… the things my mom was doing?'
'As I said, I didn't know your father that well, but he always struck me as a man that if he did know he would've done something about it.'
'Yeah, he strikes me that way too. Thanks, Nancy. Just sit tight and don't tell anyone about this, okay?'
'All right, dear. If you say so.'
'I really appreciate you being so candid.'
'I have four grown daughters of my own, two of them divorced. I know things happen. Life is never perfect. I want you to know that when your mother told me what she was doing I strongly suggested that she stop seeing these other men. To go back to your father and try and work things out. Like I said, I didn't know him all that well, but I could tell he was a good man. He didn't deserve what was happening.'
'Nancy, you're a jewel.'
'No, I'm just a mother who's seen it all.'
Michelle clicked off and gazed over at Sean. 'No wonder I'm so screwed up, right?'
'I think you're remarkably sane, actually.'
'Why didn't you want her to talk to the police?'
'I don't know. Just call it a hunch.'
'So what do we do now?'
'Until we hear back from my two-star, we don't have a lot to do. How about a quick trip to Nashville to run this down?'
They quickly found that the next direct flight to Nashville wouldn't leave until the next day, unless they wanted to connect through Chicago and then Denver and take most of a day, much of it sitting in airport lounges or else on tarmacs.
'Gotta love air travel,' said Sean, clicking off his phone after listening to the flight options. 'Fly north or west to head south.'
'Screw 'em. Feel like a drive?' Michelle said.
'With you, anytime.'
They bought some sandwiches and two giant cups of coffee and set out at eight that night. On the way down Michelle had phoned her brother Bill and learned that all her male siblings had returned to their respective towns except for Bobby, of course, who lived there.
'Got some good news,' Bill had told his sister.
'What's that?'
'Dad isn't a suspect anymore. At least not a serious one.'
'Why?'
'ME said the blow came from a lefty and Dad hits from the other side.'
'They didn't know that before?'
'The wheels of justice move slow, sis, but it's still good news.'
'How come you all left Dad?'
'We didn't, actually. He left us.'
'Meaning what exactly?'
'Meaning he told us to get the hell out of town because he was sick of us being around. I wish he would've been more direct, you know.' Michelle could almost feel her oldest brother smiling through the phone.
'You really think you should leave him alone?'
'Bobby's there. And Dad's a big boy. He can take care of himself.'
'That's not what's bothering me.'
Before Bill could ask what was bothering his sister she'd already ended the call.
Sean said, 'So good news he's been cleared, but bad news because your dad knows the killer's out there and he may take matters into his own hands.'
